Scottish Executive

Children's Hearings

Miss Annabel Goldie (West of Scotland) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive what progress has been made in ensuring the delivery of mental health reports to children's hearings following the publication of Children's Hearings Representative Group - Report on Children's Hearings Time Intervals 2002-03 .

Euan Robson: We look to NHS boards to improve and deliver on current performance. NHS boards are represented on the Children's Hearings Review Group, which meets regularly to review progress and identify improvements. The Executive will be working with child and adolescent mental health services, child health commissioners and the Scottish Children's Reporters' Administration to develop information systems to allow the delivery of mental health reports to be monitored appropriately.

Community Care

Christine Grahame (South of Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive whether it monitors the funding of aids and adaptations by local authorities and, if not, how the provision of aids and adaptations is monitored.

Mr Tom McCabe: Local authorities are not required to provide this level of detail to the Executive in their financial returns. However, the Strategy Forum: Equipment and Adaptations commented on this in their report Equipped for Inclusion . We are considering responses to the consultation on this report.

Community Care

Christine Grahame (South of Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive whether any funding for aids and adaptations is ring-fenced.

Mr Tom McCabe: No. Resources for aids and adaptations are provided through local authority general allocations.

Debt

Irene Oldfather (Cunninghame South) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what action it is taking to address the rising level of consumer debt as detailed in Citizen Advice Scotland's report On the Cards: The debt crisis facing Scottish CAB clients.

Ms Margaret Curran: We are tackling problem debt through our Partnership for a Better Scotland commitment to support the money advice sector in Scotland. To this end an extra £4 million of new funding for 2004-05 and 2005-06 was announced on 26 January 2004 which will go towards developing new front-line money advice services for a number of vulnerable groups, such as minority ethnic communities and lone parents. The funding will also be used to boost the £3 million annually already provided to local authorities by the Executive, which has resulted in 120 additional money advisers.

Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Bill

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton (Lothians) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive when it now estimates that the code of practice relating to the Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Bill will be consulted on and implemented.

Peter Peacock: Subject to the Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Bill progressing successfully through the Scottish Parliament, we will involve stakeholders in drafting a code of practice by autumn 2004. The draft code will be the subject of wide consultation in late 2004/early 2005 and, thereafter, will be laid before the Scottish Parliament before publication and issue.

Enterprise

Christine Grahame (South of Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will intervene if the Scottish Cashmere Club is adversely affected by any future reduction in funding to Scottish Enterprise Borders.

Mr Jim Wallace: Scottish Enterprise Borders has supported the Scottish Cashmere Club since it was established in 1999.

  The Scottish Executive provides Scottish Enterprise with funds for economic development. The allocation of these funds is an operational matter for Scottish Enterprise, and in this case Scottish Enterprise Borders.

  Scottish Enterprise Borders' budget and operating plan for 2004-05 will go before its Board on 30 March 2004 for final approval and, as in previous years, will be prioritised to ensure it achieves the maximum impact on the Borders' economy.

Europe

Richard Lochhead (North East Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive when it will provide the European and External Relations Committee with an annual report on the activities of the Executive's European Office, as agreed to by it in February 2003 in response to the European Committee's 5th report 2002, An Inquiry into Scotland's Representation in the European Union (SP Paper 676).

Mr Andy Kerr: The first annual report will cover the financial year 2003-04 and will be available in April.

Holyrood Inquiry

Helen Eadie (Dunfermline East) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what the anticipated total cost is of the Holyrood Inquiry.

Mr Andy Kerr: I refer the member to the answer given to question S2F-170 on 11 September 2003 which is available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/sch/search .

Maternity Services

Christine Grahame (South of Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive, with reference to Health Technology Assessment Advice 5, which NHS boards automatically offer a second trimester anomaly scan within the recommended 18 to 22 weeks gestation period and, if this is not universally offered, what steps will be taken to ensure that it will be offered automatically in all board areas and whether it will facilitate the development of action plans to help boards to achieve automatic access to first and second trimester scans.

Malcolm Chisholm: The Scottish Executive is aware that a second trimester anomaly scan is not universal across Scotland, however, we do not hold the requested information centrally. This is a matter for NHS boards.

  The contents of the Health Technology Assessment Advice 5 report is currently being fully reviewed by the Scottish Executive taking into consideration the advice from the UK National Screening Committee.

Maternity Services

Christine Grahame (South of Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive, with reference to Health Technology Assessment Advice 5, what steps will be taken to introduce local audits of ultrasound scanning against national standards and foetal loss rates following invasive diagnostic procedures.

Malcolm Chisholm: The content of the Health Technology Assessment Advice 5 report is currently being fully reviewed by the Scottish Executive taking into consideration the advice from the UK National Screening Committee.

Maternity Services

Christine Grahame (South of Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive, with reference to Health Technology Assessment Advice 5, what steps will be taken to record data regarding prenatal identification of conditions and subsequent outcomes in order to evaluate the effectiveness of screening and scanning programmes and develop electronic storage of maternity, birth and child surveillance records.

Malcolm Chisholm: The content of the Health Technology Assessment Advice 5 report is currently being fully reviewed by the Scottish Executive taking into consideration the advice from the UK National Screening Committee.

  The Scottish Executive Health Department has recently established a Child Health Information Strategy Group to address the issues of prenatal and childhood health information and development of electronic maternity and child health records.

Maternity Services

Christine Grahame (South of Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive, with reference to Health Technology Assessment Advice 5, what steps will be taken to ensure that the safety of ultrasound use is continuously monitored by units and that British Medical Ultrasound Society guidelines for the safe use of diagnostic ultrasound equipment are adhered to at all times.

Malcolm Chisholm: The contents of the Health Technology Assessment Advice 5 report is currently being fully reviewed by the Scottish Executive taking into consideration the advice from the UK National Screening Committee.

Maternity Services

Christine Grahame (South of Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive, with reference to Health Technology Assessment Advice 5, what steps will be taken to ensure that the National Services Division's national pregnancy screening programme specifications are extended to cover all aspects of ultrasound scanning, including gestational age assessment and second trimester anomaly scanning.

Malcolm Chisholm: A review of the Health Technology Assessment Advice 5 report is currently underway by the Scottish Executive which will take into consideration the advice from the UK National Screening Committee. The National Services Division's national pregnancy screening programme specifications will be considered during this review.

Maternity Services

Christine Grahame (South of Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive, with reference to Health Technology Assessment Advice 5, what increases in the NHS budget will be made to allow for the estimated increase in costs to the antenatal scanning service following the implementation of the Health Technology Assessment recommendations.

Malcolm Chisholm: NHS boards are given an annual general allocation to meet the health care needs of their resident populations. It is for boards to determine, within the funds available, how to manage and deliver local health care services to meet these needs, bearing in mind national and local priorities.

  Every NHS board received a minimum increase in their funding of 7.4% in 2003-04 and 6.75% in 2004-05.

  The contents of the Health Technology Assessment Advice 5 report is currently being fully reviewed by the Scottish Executive taking into consideration the advice from the UK National Screening Committee. Resources will be considered as part of this process.

Poverty

Stewart Stevenson (Banff and Buchan) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive how many, and what percentage of, children lived in poverty as defined by the (a) absolute low income, (b) relative low income and (c) material derivation indicators announced in the Department for Work and Pensions' report Measuring Child Poverty (i) before and (ii) after housing costs in each year from 1999 to 2003, broken down by local authority area.

Ms Margaret Curran: The latest estimates of the numbers and percentages of children in Scotland living in absolute and relative low income poverty, before and after housing costs, can be found in tables 2e and 2g of the Scottish Executive's report Social Justice Indicators of Progress 2003. A copy of the report is available in the Parliament's Reference Centre (Bib. number 30309).

  Information is not yet available on the material deprivation indicator measure. Questions on material deprivation have been introduced into the Family Resources Surveys (FRS) – from which low income poverty figures are derived – from 2004-05. Results will be available in 2006.

  Figures on children living in low income poverty are not available at local authority level.

Residential Care

Christine Grahame (South of Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answers to questions S2W-5962 and S2W-5963 by Mr Tom McCabe on 25 February and 9 March 2004, what it estimates the cost is of providing free personal care to 780 people under 65 with dementia.

Mr Tom McCabe: I refer the member to the answers given to S2W-5963 and S2W-6498 on 26 February and 9 March 2004.All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at:

  http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

Scottish Executive Funding

Donald Gorrie (Central Scotland) (LD): To ask the Scottish Executive what funding to local authorities and voluntary organisations has been allocated through competitive bidding by (a) it and (b) the Scottish Office and what information it has on such funding schemes run by (i) NHS boards and trusts, (ii) local authorities, (iii) the lottery, (iv) enterprise bodies and (v) non-departmental public bodies in each year since 1999, stating in each case the (1) value of the scheme, (2) number of successful bids and (3) number of unsuccessful bids.

Mr Andy Kerr: Information on all these funding schemes is not held centrally. This is an operational matter for each of the bodies concerned.

  The following schemes have been identified from within the Scottish Executive as resulting from competitive bidding:

  Public Transport Fund Allocations

  


Year

Value of Scheme

Successful Bids

Unsuccessful Bids



1999-2000

£29.52 million

13

5



2000-01

£29.73 million

21

5



2001-02

£44.45 million

23

3



2002-03

£57.49 million

26

19



2003-04

£58.98 million

23

17



  Air Quality Allocations

  


Year

Value of Scheme

Successful Bids

Unsuccessful Bids



1999-2000

£0.5 million

11

2



2000-01

£0.3 million

9

0



2001-02

£0.3 million

6

0



2002-03

£0.3 million

12

0



2003-04

£0.3 million

14

0



  In addition, a vehicle emissions testing grant scheme has recently started, with 2003-04 as the first year of operation. The funding is £0.5 million, and there have been three successful and zero unsuccessful bids.

  Derelict and Contaminated Land Remediation

  


Year

Value of Funding

Successful Bids

Unsuccessful Bids



2002-03

£3.9 million

15

3

Scottish Executive Procurement

Shiona Baird (North East Scotland) (Green): To ask the Scottish Executive how its procurement policies promote the use of high-efficiency energy appliances in the public sector.

Tavish Scott: The Scottish Public Finance Manual, which applies to the Scottish Executive, its agencies and non-departmental public bodies, states that all procurement of goods and services should be based on value for money, having due regard to propriety and regularity. "Value for money" is defined as the optimum combination of whole-life cost, which will include running and disposal costs as well as the initial purchase price, and quality (or fitness for purpose) to meet the user's requirement.

  The Scottish Executive does not prescribe what energy-related equipment should be procured by public sector bodies. This will be a matter for the body concerned. Through the Government's Actionenergy programme, local authorities have access to free advice on good practice on energy management including technical information on high efficiency appliances.